Only You Can Save Me From This Madness
by with-etoiles
Summary: What he had something against was that feeling of dread creeping through his stomach, his mind throttling him back towards that night. He didn't need that. He had wiped himself clean of that memory. He was done with it.


(Only You Can) Save Me From Madness

"Blaine Warbler, will you go to Junior Prom with me?"

_His face is so bright. Hopeful. I haven't felt like that in the longest time. Only when… only when I found Kurt had I ever been as happy as he is now. How could I say no?_ _How could I deny Kurt this one chance to do everything he thought he couldn't a few months before?_ _I know how much it means to him…_ Blaine sighed, so torn. There was a conflict raging in the back of his mind. He could vividly remember the physical pain from his own prom night, the harassment and the bullying. Those guys that beat him up; he could remember their faces to the finest detail. Jocks. Big, muscular jokes. One guy's jacket, he remembered, had sweat stains by the armpit area and was torn on both sleeves by the elbow. It looked as if he tore them off and then was caught by his mother when he returned home, who promptly sewed them back on. He probably had received a stern swat on the wrists for trying to act so tough. He could imagine that plenty well. How each person, each person with the smoldering fury in his eyes, the useless hate he could see coursing through their muscles and veins, how each person had a heart inside. _See,_ Blaine thought morosely, _there's a soft side to everyone._ He lied to himself so often about that incident, trying to moralize them in his mind, rationalize the event. Anything to make it all make sense! He knew it was all in vain though. It was bad, that night.

The other half of his mind, however, was harkening back to the joy he had felt before the incident. He was just as excited as Kurt, maybe even more so. He was going to attend prom, and in his mind it would be his crowning moment. He had come to terms with his sexuality and would embrace it wholeheartedly. At least, that was his line of thought. In his own delusional way, he thought that maybe it would feel a little bit like being crowned prom king. That everyone would take notice of his achievement and applaud. People would be proud of him; people would care. He thought that he might actually garner the attention he'd been yearning for for the longest time. And all that, of course, made it worse when everything crashed and burned. But he still couldn't forget that feeling. It was a feeling too amazing to let go of. _I just can't deny Kurt that._

So, reluctantly, he pushed away his doubt. He passed off his hesitation with a fleeting smile and the excuse that he never really thought about prom because he had no one to go with. That was a lie, though. A dead lie. He had gone with someone to the prom before. He remembered him clearly, but not for all the right reasons. He remembered him because of the atrocity that happened next. He remembered him because of those idiot bullies at his old school. He remembered him because of the consequences of their actions, of his actions. Of his decision to embrace who he was and what happened as a result. No matter, though, he could do nothing about the past now. He truly had nothing against the boy he went with. What he had something against was that feeling of dread creeping through his stomach, his mind throttling him back towards that night. He didn't need that. He had wiped himself clean of that memory. He was done with it. Kurt smiled and Blaine smiled back. He could feel the walls in their relationship, the ones that he had worked so hard to tear down, creeping up again. He could feel the glimmers of his memories crowd around him, almost suffocating him. He reached for Kurt's hand again, exhaling softly as he felt the memories slink back to the forsaken corners of his mind.

"I'm crazy about you."

"So," Kurt started, "I take that as a yes?"

Blaine couldn't help but laugh despite his current state of mind. "Yes, yes. You and I are going to the prom."

* * *

><p>At prom, Blaine was having a difficult time keeping himself in the present. The only thing keeping him tethered to the present was Kurt. He could feel the strains of Rachel's strong voice floating around him and felt the indistinct comfort of all the couples slow dancing on the floor in the air. He sneaked a glance at Kurt, who was staring wistfully at the couples too. He wanted so badly to take his hand and lead him out onto the dance floor. He wanted to say a big<em> eff you<em> to all the sidelong glances he had caught being thrown at them, just for standing next to each other, wearing the matching pink boutonnieres, _loving_ each other. He wanted to screw everything, every fear he had, every anxiety that rocked him back into discontent indecision as he had just decided to dance with Kurt. Instead, he just stood there demurely, fighting his cravings with his fears.

"Blaine, what's wrong?" Kurt had such a tender look on his face, if not a bit annoyed too. Kurt had no idea what was raging on inside his mind. He could recognize the concern masking his annoyance, but the annoyance was so pronounced to him. Maybe he could just recognize it because he had studied that face so many times before. Either way, Blaine didn't want to see that face fall. He had to appease Kurt, and more than had to he wanted to. So badly. He kept thinking that staring at that face would give him courage. But instead he averted his eyes to every corner of the room except Kurt. He took in Rachel staring pointedly at Finn, and Finn staring just as openly. If he was in a better mood, he would have questioned Quinn's seeming indifference to this development, but he wasn't. He noticed Brittany dancing with another girl. He also noticed Santana and Karofsky, that filthy Neanderthal, similarly looking at everyone but each other. _Stop_, he thought to himself. _Kurt says that he's changed. They have the Bully Whips going on and they're keeping Kurt safe and…_

"Blaine." Kurt's voice cut through his loud thoughts. He turned slowly to face Kurt.

"Blaine, I know something's wrong. _Please_ tell me." Kurt tried to smile, but it never touched his eyes. "If I know you, you would've already asked me to dance 10 minutes ago. But you're not."

_Time to put up my mask again. _"Nothing's wrong, Kurt. Nothing at all." He faked a smile, staring pointedly right below Kurt's eyes.

"No. Something's definitely wrong. Like I said, you would've asked me to dance by now. You wouldn't be so distant. Tell me Blaine."

Blaine tried so hard to keep up his façade, if only for Kurt's sake. Kurt didn't need all of his baggage. All Kurt wanted was a nice, enjoyable prom. He didn't want Kurt to feel entitled to comforting him of all people. He should be treating himself on prom night. Blaine didn't need to give Kurt anything other than happiness that night. But try as he might, something in Kurt's eyes broke him down. When he finally allowed himself to gaze into his eyes, he saw a mounting sadness. This was exactly the opposite of what he wanted! He was trying to be strong for Kurt, but all he saw was a hurt betrayal in Kurt's eyes. _No, no, no, no, no, no, no._ That was all he could think, hear or see. The looming silence right before everyone applauded for Rachel jumped on him, strangled out the truth. Those walls that had been rising the entire night, they were torn down. They were ripped apart, savagely smashed at the hand of his demise. He couldn't hold it in anymore. Tears threatened to spring to his eyes, his mouth quivered in a weird motion, and he ran.

* * *

><p>In the boy's bathroom, Blaine sighed. His breath fogged up the mirror as he stared long and hard at himself. <em>Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. <em>He was splashing cold water onto his face, trying to banish the memories for the umpteenth time that night. The stupid, stupid, memories. To make it worse, he had disappointed Kurt! Kurt was probably still in the gym, contemplating breaking up with him. Great. He lost the one person he loved too. Great. It was all stupid. It was all so messed up. He would've imagined Kurt's face to calm him down, but now that only wound him up too. He lost him.

So instead, he turned to his memories as a child. He rewound time back before meeting Kurt, back before his first prom, back before he was old enough to understand the twisted morality of the world. He was 7; he was by his mother's side. She was stroking his hair, playfully pulling each loose curl. He was 8; he was by his father's side. He had pulled him into a long, tight hug. He was on the beach with his parents, making sandcastles and laughing into the wind. But suddenly a figure appeared. He had skin like porcelain, pretty hair and the bluest eyes he had ever seen. Blaine found himself getting lost in the stranger's eyes, oblivious to the scene morphing around him. His father and mother stopped smiling at him and started giving him the cold shoulder. Blaine was becoming a teenager. He was realizing that he wasn't normal. This beautiful boy, he was everything he had dreamed of. Blaine held eye contact with the stranger as everything in his world fell apart. Blaine wanted desperately to reach out in front of him and grab the stranger, grab him for his own. Then it clicked.

He had issues, he wasn't oblivious. He had issues with his father, with his past, with a lot of things. This stranger that had crept into his daydreams, it wasn't a stranger. _I'm so stupid,_ he thought_. It was Kurt._ Even trying to go to a happier place in his past, trying to escape from the present, he realized he couldn't. He was the happiest he had ever been now. Perhaps he longed for simplicity, and that's why he tried to escape to his past. Perhaps he simply didn't know where else to go. Either way, Kurt's face crept its way into his thoughts. He knew he couldn't just let him down like that. He had to tell Kurt. He had to let Kurt in. Kurt would understand. He had to do it for Kurt, at least. He couldn't leave Kurt hanging.

So, before his determination left him, he walked out of the bathroom, taking one last look at himself in the mirror. The fog had lifted from where he had anxiously breathed. It was all clear.

* * *

><p>Kurt ran through the hallways of the school, trying to find Blaine wherever he had hidden. Kurt knew something was massively wrong now. The way Blaine had curled into himself, the way he had seen Blaine's eyes droop and his mouth quiver. There was something seriously wrong.<p>

"Blaine!" Kurt yelled repeatedly, desperation lacing his voice. "Blaine!"

He found him walking out of the boy's bathroom, something like worry yet calmness pervading his features.

"Blaine!" He exhaled sharply. "Thank goodness I found you!"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Before you break up with me for deserting you, I have to tell you something."

Kurt let the tiniest smile upturn his lips. He pulled Blaine to sit by the lockers with him.

"Listen and look at me." Blaine turned his averted eyes back to Kurt.

"I'm not going to break up with you. I just want to know what's wrong." He exhaled shakily as he watched Blaine's face pale a little bit.

"I-I-" Blaine stuttered miserably, feeling the courage he had earlier drain out of him. He would still go through with it though, he had to for Kurt.

"At my old school there was a Sadie Hawkins dance, and I had _just_ come out." His words started to quicken, his heart beat racing forward and simultaneously back towards that moment in time.

"So… I asked a friend of mine, the only other gay guy in the school. While we were waiting for his dad to pick us up, these three guys, um… beat the living crap out of us." He turned his face down, hiding how the memories tore across it.

Kurt was speechless. "I- I'm so sorry."

"I- I didn't realize when I asked- I didn't know- I'm so sorry-"

"Enough," Blaine interrupted. "Look, I came here because I trust you _that_ much. You didn't think anything was going to happen, so I convinced myself nothing was going to happen. And nothing did! Apart from my inappropriate flee from the gym, nothing has happened. Just like you said."

Kurt stared, dumbfounded. One part of his mind was telling him to reach for Blaine, to kiss him senseless. The other half was telling him to comfort him, don't make him regret telling you. Figuring that the former was too aggressive an approach, he settled with the latter.

"I lo-lo- Thank you Blaine. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for telling me." The unsaid sentiments bounced around in the air. _I love you._

"No, thank you." He responded simply.

"How did I get so lucky," he continued after a brief silence, "as to find someone like you? You are the type of person I used to dream of having."

"And there you were, dreamy as ever," Kurt continued, blushing as the memories from the coffee shop flooded his head.

"And there you were," Blaine repeated.

They grabbed each other's hands, lacing their fingers. They walked into the gym, sending flippant looks towards whoever did a double take. Blaine was enormously pleased to see that Rachel had started another slow song.

"May I have this dance?" He asked with a smirk on his face.

Kurt smiled widely. "Yes, yes you may."

They hadn't said it, but it was there in the air. _I love you. I love you too._


End file.
